Don't Wake Me Up
by Sir-Mercutio-McHuffer
Summary: And he was having such a nice dream, too. Still, that little scrap of purple cloth WAS more amusing.


**AN: **I have plot bunnies fornicating in my brain space. This, when I'm trying to work and study, is getting painful and challenging. I'm trying to learn hybrid electron configurations and all I can see is 9 or 10 and Rose. Add listening to music and suddenly _every song gives me a ficlet_. This particular one was written with Chris Brown - Wake Me Up on repeat. For the last 5 hours.

I don't own anything. Not a thing. I would love to, though. And if I did, it would all be so different.

This is fresh-off-my-brain and un-beta'd.

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_Too much light in this window, don't wake me up_  
_Only coffee no sugar, inside my cup_  
_If I wake and you're here still, give me a kiss_  
_I wasn't finished dreaming, about your lips_

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"Wake up, Doctor," the honeyed voice poured down his ears. "Wake up." The bed sank beside him and the ghost of golden hair tickled his cheeks. The fiendish grin that crossed his lips could have split a galaxy. He opened his eyes to meet limpid brown ones and a cheeky grin of her own.

"Now I know I'm not awake," he said with a whoop, throwing his arms around Rose and pulling her down into a hug. "You'd never dream of waking me up without a coffee." She laughed, hair tangling on the pillows in a halo. "But that's fine, don't really want to wake up," he purred, voice dropping as he buried his face into her neck. Her squeal of delight confirmed it for him, but that was alright.

Here, in his dreams, he could hold his Rose. "Don't wake me up," he begged into the skin of her throat. Her hands came up to stroke his head, nails rasping through the short hairs. Her voice murmured soothing nonsense into his ear and he just lay there.

It was a blessing to have this dream and not his usual torment. He couldn't sleep, wouldn't sleep, didn't dare sleep most days. When his eyes were on stalks and the semi-solid coffee did not work, then he would collapse. It was rare indeed that his thoughts were not chased by bitter fire and death.

So he would lie in her arms, every opportunity he could, and let her dulcet tones wash over him. Her fingers would brush his head and neck, gently massaging and soothing. It chased away the darkness, the shrieks and the clashes. In his waking hours, just taking her hand would do that. Her smile was his balm. One hug from her could shame the suns into hiding their brilliance.

Gods but she was so good for him. This human child with light and laughter and star dust in her smile. Time itself loved her, and he, a mere child of Time, could do no less. Love her with both of his hearts, his fingers, his toes. Even the satellite dishes attached to his head.

Which her lips were currently brushing.

His brain never quite caught up with his body after that. He rolled her into the bed, hips pushing her into the mattress and his own lips ghosting over hers. Those lush, full lips, oh so slightly parted in a wordless gasp, barely millimetres away.

"Doctor? Wake up, Doctor!"

"Please, don't wake me up," he whimpered as his lips brushed hers.

"Doctor! Caffeine time!"

The wordless groan he expelled into his pillow expressed some, but not all, of his frustration. He turned a baleful glare over his shoulder to behold a sight.

Rose Tyler, dressed in a purple dressing gown and fluffy pink slippers, grinning cheekily at him, holding a big, steaming mug of coffee. Her riot of waving golden hair was tied back in a messy tail, still wet from the shower. "You said you wanted to be up only when you could have the bathroom all to yourself. I'm all done, so you can spend your hours in there putting on your pretty face." Her tongue poked between her teeth as she set the mug on a stack of books on his bed side table. The top one was a re-reprint of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, complete with full appendices – really, the man was a genius. "And your morning wake up call, just the way you like it." She wrinkled her nose. "Strong enough to strip paint from the walls."

He groaned and rolled back into his pillow, the pillow that had been Rose Tyler only moments before. She hooted with laughter as she ducked the thrown pillow, which sailed over her head and into the hallway. The next pillow landed with a smack on the door to another peal of laughter from his golden girl.

His dreams couldn't compare to the joy she inferred upon him in his waking hours. Nor could it compare to the caffeine waiting to be consumed, or the prospect of an undisturbed _shower_. The TARDIS had been gleeful since Rose had come on board, and he'd expected her to procure additional ablution facilities. No such bloody luck.

So they fought over the bathroom every morning. He'd learned very early on that if he wanted to maintain possession of the bathroom, he _could not leave it_. Or Rose, blast her cheeky grin, would be in there like a shot, asking him where he'd stuffed her hair drier this time (he still hadn't told her it was now gracing the TARDIS' internal wiring, the fan converted to cooling a hot spot in one of the circuit boards).

No, he'd gotten canny in his old age.

So he grabbed his coffee, threw his clothes over his shoulder, and tottered down the hallway to the bathroom in his boxer shorts. Bathroom hogging was his sweet revenge. Rose invariably forgot something in there, and she'd have to _wait_ for him to finish (his coffee, his reading, his plotting, his sonicing, his _whatever-ing_) before retrieving the forgotten item. Since her hair drier still hadn't appeared, it wouldn't be that, but … _ah_. _Oh_.

Her mascara. Sitting on op of what could only be described as purple tooth floss, and definitely not described as something one would wear as underthings. His feet were rooted to the spot, eyes fixated in a mixture of horror and intense curiosity – horror at how uncomfortable that would be, and curiosity at what it would look like _on_.

It was only through supreme strength of will (a will he was beginning to wish he didn't quite have) that he tore his gaze from the undergarment and inched towards it, as if it would leap up and bite him (stranger things _had_ happened, admittedly, not in a long time, and certainly not involving ladies' underthings). He dropped his leather jacket over it. Out of sight, out of mind.

Except it wasn't, it was now burned in his retinas, this tiny scrap of purple fabric. It was clean, which meant that Rose hadn't been … wearing … _anything_ …

His hearts were going to explode in a moment if he didn't stop _thinking_.

The frigid water lacing down his skin put all such thoughts to the very back of his mind. It took a bit of time to warm up, the shower, but that was all fine and dandy with him. Give him something else to concentrate on. The water had barely managed to hit 'luke warm' when the door was nearly hammered off its hinges.

"_Doctor!_" Rose near howled. "I left something in there!" He stuffed his fist into his mouth to stop himself from laughing out loud. Oh she sounded _embarrassed_! His own ears were bright pink from hilarity and a blush all in one. "Doctor! I really _really_ need to get it!" She was sounding a bit desperate and he tried to fit his second fist down his throat. A few solid seconds of wheezing and he finally had his diaphragm under control.

"I'll be out 'soon'!" he replied. The knocking stopped and he couldn't hear her through the water stream. He snorted then, but stuffed his fist back between his teeth before he burst into hysterical giggles. That wouldn't do, not one bit. She might still be there.

A few more calming breaths and he could release his knuckles from jaw, but couldn't quite restrain a breathy chuckle or a demented grin. A vigorous soap down later, with extra attention to the area behind the ears, you never neglected that, especially not with honking great ones like his, and he was leaping out of the shower and into a towel. He'd barely dried himself before he was yanking pants on and cramming a toothbrush into the area he'd been trying to stuff his hands only a few minutes earlier.

It was the fastest he'd ever exited the bathroom since Rose had joined him on the TARDIS. She wasn't waiting outside the door (he was almost disappointed, the look on her face would have given him fits of giggles for weeks to remember it).

He left his leather jacket.

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